Statistics NZ Fitout, Wellington
Winner NZIA Local Award 2006
Winner NZIA Resene Colour Award 2006
The strategic brief for this Statistics NZ fitout at Wellington's Harbour Quays, developed in association with DEGW, was geared towards radically changing the way that the company’s staff worked, creating a more interactive, adaptable and unified organisational structure with increased productivity.
At the early briefing stages of the project, the team reviewed suggested pulling the lift and stair cores apart to create a central hub area on each floor. Used both for informal, collaborative work and for breaks, the hub has distinctive qualities, including a lively acoustic, soft lighting and relaxed, varied seating, that distinguish it from the general office space.
Circulation through the open plan workspaces is defined by fins that incorporate uplighting and structured planting. Informal meeting rooms directly attached to the main circulation route encourage collaborative work. Typical floors accommodate staff in 120 degree desking, the result of a pilot study to ascertain the optimal balance between interaction and privacy. Desks are laid out in a flexible arrangement that offers a range of pathways and communication routes. Unusually, quiet rooms are placed at the perimeter of each floor, creating peaceful spaces for individual work that offer light and inspiring views.
The ground floor accommodates a gracious reception area leading to a suite of meeting rooms and a café, which is open to the general public and gives the floor a sense of vibrancy and energy that was previously lacking. A striped feature carpet, with its coloured bands recalling a bar graph or chart, gives this area a sense of personality.
A survey completed post-occupancy revealed excellent productivity gains, improved collaboration, improved adaptability and overall a particularly positive response to the new look and layout.
Client: Statistics New Zealand
